


sleepover

by superstringtheory



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Coughing, Fever, Gen, Good Sister Allison Hargreeves, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Recreational Drug Use, Sibling Bonding, Sick Klaus Hargreeves, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 16:36:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstringtheory/pseuds/superstringtheory
Summary: Klaus isn't going to let a little sore throat stop him from attending an art gallery opening.





	sleepover

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a prompt on tumblr that went along the lines of "imagine your character is sick but isn't showing many outward signs of it- it's just SUPER apparent when they talk because they're so hoarse/congested." This story was borne of that.

It probably started in that McDonald’s play place, Klaus thinks. Kids everywhere. Kids and their germs. (And sure, their drug-dealing stay-at-home dads, but what’s that to anyone?) 

So he caught the plague from some snot-nosed child who didn’t wash their hands and now he’s finagled an invitation to this fancy schmancy art gallery reception and it sounds like there will probably be some great booze there-- and nose candy, if he knows art people, and he does-- and it’s not even going to be that fun because his throat hurts and that’s just  _ lame _ . 

“You could always just stay home,” Ben advises. “Rest up. Don’t party until the wee hours for once.” 

Klaus sniggers. “As if, Ben.” He doesn’t even get into the whole “home” thing, because that’s a laugh and a half. He’s currently squatting in a show unit of an apartment building. His friend works for the front desk of the apartment and hooked him up- he just has to remove himself and all traces that he’d been there during business hours. 

It’s not so bad, considering, but it’s still not  _ home _ . He knows what Ben means, but Klaus has always been pedantic like this. Ben says sometimes that Klaus should finish college and go to grad school, that he’s good enough at talking out of his ass that he may as well get a degree in it, but Klaus has always laughed that idea off too. 

College was a fun idea back when he was eighteen and could keep the spirits (literally) at bay with a few Jell-O shots and some Mary J, but now he’s on the other side of twenty-five and that doesn’t cut it anymore. 

Well, it never really cut it, if he’s honest, but it used to be easier to ignore. Then Ben died and it all got to be more than he could handle without some help from some harder stuff. 

Right now, he doesn’t have much of anything to go on- some pot and a last bump of coke. He decides to do the coke and then see if he can score some more at the party. It shouldn’t be too hard- he’s never had difficulties in assessing who he should cozy up to. 

“You’re  _ sure  _ you still want to go?” Ben is watching him warily, like he thinks Klaus is some sort of wild animal that will startle away and get hit by a car. 

“Yeah, sure, why?” Okay, so his voice maybe sounds pretty hoarse and sometimes he can’t stop coughing, but if the party has good music, it’s not like anyone will be listening to him anyway. 

“Your self-preservation skills are shit,” Ben says. “But whatever.” 

Whatever is right. Klaus is just trying to keep Ben’s afterlife exciting. 

*** 

The art gallery is downtown, and Klaus is glad for his faux fur-trimmed coat because it’s getting a little chilly out. He’s feeling good, though- he’s buzzed from the coke and excited about getting to rub elbows with fancy rich people. One of his favorite pastimes is to see what ridiculous shit he can make people like that believe. Last time he found himself somewhere like this, he told some lady draped in Gucci from head to toe that a reincarnated Coco Chanel was the one who actually murdered Gianni Versace. 

He hasn’t even been there long enough to assess who will be the most fun to play with when he sees a flash of curly hair out of the corner of his eye and hears someone calling his name. 

“Klaus?! What are you doing here?” Well, of all the people. 

“Allison! Jesus, you look good. Celebrity looks great on you, darling.” Klaus starts to drape an arm around Allison’s shoulder and she steps back, probably without even realizing she’s doing it. 

“Klaus, you sound terrible. What is wrong with your voice?” 

“Oh, this?” Klaus tries to clear his throat a little, but it doesn’t do much good. “Just a little sore throat, you know, nothing messy.” 

Allison squints- she’s wearing a very avant-garde eyeshadow look with lots of blending, and it looks great even when she’s scowling at him. 

“That sounds like more than just a sore throat.” 

Klaus snags a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and takes a gulp. “Ow,  _ shit _ .” He winces as he swallows. So maybe that wasn’t the best idea, but whatever. He tries to clear his throat and that just throws him into a coughing jag, which is awkward because there are lots of fancy people around and they’re all staring at Allison because she’s, well,  _ Allison _ , and he’s sure it’s not going to take too much longer for some eagle eye to realize who he is, especially in the context of Allison. 

Allison seems to come to that realization quickly as well, because she takes Klaus by the elbow and pulls him over behind a sculpture made entirely out of thousands of wooden golf tees. 

“So I have a hotel room,” Allison sighs. “There’s an extra bed.” 

“Really? After not seeing each other in years, now we’re having a sleepover? My, what a day.” 

“Don’t get too excited,” Allison warns. “This is only because you sound like death and I don’t want to be responsible for you dying of pneumonia.” 

“Ben says that it doesn’t sound like I have pneumonia. Oh. Yet. He says ‘yet.’” 

“Klaus, Ben is dead. You know that.” Allison’s expression is a mixture of pity and frustration, but it’s only momentary-- then she draws the mask of Allison-the-perfect-celebrity back on. “Come on, Klaus. My driver will take us there.” 

*** 

Allison’s hotel is lavish, and the “room” is really a suite with two California King beds and an entire sitting area. 

Klaus has barely taken his shoes off and is about to sit down on one of the little couches when Allison says, “So, how long have you been sick like that?” 

“Getting right to it, huh? No ‘how was your day, Klaus’ or ‘haven’t seen you in years, Klaus, how’s it been’?” 

Allison just looks at him flatly. “I can see how it’s been.” 

Ouch. 

“Cool. Then I’ll just go to sleep here on your extra bed and then I’ll be gone before you get up in the morning. No trouble.” 

Allison sighs. “I… I’m sorry. That’s not how I meant it. It’s just… it’s been  _ years _ , Klaus, of not knowing what was happening to or with you and sometimes I wasn’t sure if you were even alive.” 

“Oh, you’d know it if I died.” Klaus takes it upon himself to start to rummage in the room’s minibar. 

“Would I, though?” Allison is doing some sort of yogic move with her arms over her head, trying to get her dress unzipped. She heaves another sigh. “Ugh. Klaus, could you…?” 

Klaus sets the mini bottle of whiskey down on his bed and goes to unzip Allison. He can almost see her step away from the Allison-the-celebrity person as she steps out of the dress. She tosses it on a nearby chair. 

“I’m going to take a shower,” Allison says abruptly. “Don’t leave this room.” 

Klaus coughs, in the middle of moving back to the minibar again. “Who, me? I’m here for the duration, sister.” 

“Whatever,” Allison says. “I’ll be back in a little while.” 

Once Allison has disappeared into the bathroom and shut the door, Klaus checks out his coat pockets for his current stash-- still just the pot, which is lame because right now he can’t seem to stop coughing. 

Shit, he was so focused on Allison and distracted by this stupid  _ illness _ that he forgot to pick up anything. Those art people probably had good stuff, too. 

***

When Allison reemerges from the bathroom, she’s wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe and has taken all of her makeup off. She simultaneously looks both younger and more weary. 

As she approaches, Klaus sneezes grandly into his bare hands and then starts coughing, which isn’t exactly his best look. 

“Hey,” Allison starts, once he’s got his respiration a little more under control. “Can I get room service to bring you some cold medicine or something?” 

Klaus considers. “Probably shouldn’t mix… how about a hot toddy?” 

Allison doesn’t even argue. She knows that it’s pointless. 

“Will you eat something if I order it, too? You look so skinny, Klaus.” Her fingers reach out for his wrist and she tugs him to sit next to her on her bed. 

“God,” she says next, moving her hands up to his neck. “Have you had a fever this whole time?” 

Klaus shrugs. “Maybe?” He pauses. “Ben says he thinks so.” 

Allison seems to struggle with herself for a moment, weighing whether it’s worth arguing over. She must decide that it isn’t, because she just says, “Hmm. And you didn’t think to do anything about that?” 

“I’ve been high most of the time,” Klaus tells her honestly. “So it’s just kind of annoying.” He yawns and then grimaces in pain. “ _ Ow _ , God, my throat is starting to kill.” 

“It sounds like it has been,” Allison says. “You sound like you should be in bed eating soup.” 

“Oh, with a hundred people who croaked it in this very hotel? I’ll pass, thanks,” Klaus says. “And it’s really not so bad… I’m just starting to notice it more, um. At the moment.” 

“Hence the hot toddy.” 

He sniffles, and since when was that such a futile effort? 

“Uh-huh.” Not to mention the little bottles from the minibar. 

“Okay, fine.” Allison is already dialing the room phone, and Klaus lets himself zone out as she orders his drink and what sounds like a soup and sandwich combination. 

“Here.” Now Allison’s prodding at his elbow. “You want to take a shower while we wait for the food? It might make you feel better.” 

“Darling, I feel  _ fine _ ,” Klaus assures her, valiantly ignoring Ben laughing at him in the background. 

“Huh. Your voice would disagree. Plus, it’s not cold in here.” 

“Who says I’m cold?” 

“You, Klaus. You’ve got your arms wrapped around yourself and you’re shivering.” 

Klaus decides to use that as a good time for a little coughing fit. Right now, it’s not taking much to irritate his throat, and it’s an excellent excuse not to continue boarding this train of conversation. 

“You know what,” Klaus says decisively after he regains the power of speech in sentences. “I think I will take that shower after all.” 

*** 

Allison isn’t wrong. The hot water and steam do feel really good, and do make it a bit easier to breathe. In all honesty, Klaus would have preferred a bath, but this fancy hotel just has a giant tiled walk-in shower. Typical. Every Motel Six has a tub but this place can’t be bothered. 

Luckily, what this hotel lacks in bathtubs it makes up for in extra bathrobes, so Klaus cozies himself up in a robe identical to Allison’s. 

“It really is like we’re having a sleepover,” he says when he comes out of the bathroom, and his voice is all weirdly pitched and catches on the end of the sentence so that he has to try and clear his already sore throat to no avail. 

“Oh,  _ Klaus _ ,” Allison says. “Your throat must feel just awful. Here.” She pats the bed next to her. There’s a silver room service tray sitting next to the bed. “Come on up and let’s get something hot into you.” 

“Now that’s a missed innuendo if I ever heard one,” Ben says from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the other bed. 

“Shh,” Klaus tells him, and Allison looks confused but clearly decides not to ask, because her most important task is to get her brother to eat some goddamn soup. 

“Do you want to get under the covers? I don’t mind. This bed is huge.” It’s true. Everything about this hotel room is huge. 

“I guess that’d be okay,” Klaus agrees, because anything to get him that hot toddy sooner is a good idea. 

Once he gets himself all settled under the covers and sitting up against several of the thousand pillows, Allison gets down off the bed and opens the cover of the room service tray. 

She carefully places it in front of Klaus on top of the bedspread and he looks at her with mild disdain but no surprise. 

“You got me tea.” 

“Did I?” Allison plays coy. “Huh.” 

Well, then. Klaus will just have to make do on his own. He sips tea until there’s enough room in the cup to dump in one of the little minibar bottles of whiskey. 

“I did my best,” Allison states, probably just for her own peace of mind. She turns on the flatscreen wall-mounted television and starts flipping through the channels as Klaus eats a few bites of soup. 

By the time Klaus has managed to finish most of the soup and part of the sandwich (plus two more minibar bottles), they’re watching a rerun of some trashy reality show where a guy picks which girl he hates the least and asks her to marry him. 

Surprisingly, despite the sore throat and the lack of reality-numbing drugs, it’s a pretty fun night. Klaus and Allison disagree about which girl they hate the least but agree on which one they hate the most. 

Klaus lets himself sleep in the next morning, and only wakes when Allison gently shakes his shoulder. He croaks a good morning to her and she frowns, using the back of her hand to feel his forehead. 

“Still sick,” she diagnoses, and Klaus just nods. Ugh. Everything has worn off and he feels terrible- congested, sore all over, out of breath. 

Plus, he can hear some old dead biddy moaning in the corner of the room about how she thinks she was poisoned and he  _ really _ doesn’t have time for that right now. 

“You want some Tylenol?” Allison asks, and she’s already getting it out of her bag before he can get his foggy brain straight enough to answer. 

Sure. Why not. It’s not like that’s the only thing he’ll be taking today if he has anything to do about it. Klaus swallows the pills she gives him with a little wince and then puts his head back down on the pillow. 

“I have a breakfast meeting I have to go to,” Allison tells him, “But why don’t you nap here until I get back? I don’t have to check out until after noon.” 

Klaus nods- sure, he’ll stay here a little while after she leaves, but he can’t imagine still being here when she returns. He playacts at getting ready to go back to sleep and Allison runs a quick hand through his hair, which honestly feels amazing. 

It was good to see her, but he can’t cling to the past any more than he already does, what with his dead brother’s ghost always trailing him like Peter Pan’s shadow. 

Klaus is gone before Allison gets back and so is some of her jewelry. He writes her a note on the hotel stationary that says, “See you around, sis. It was a good sleepover” and hopes she doesn’t mind. 

*****


End file.
